If there was ever a white whale camera that I would love to have in my film photography arsenal it would be the Hasselblad XPAN. The XPAN is a very unique camera that gives the photographer the ability to shoot wide cinematic scenes on 35mm film. The problem with wanting a one trick pony camera like the XPAN is that it is extreamly expensive and can sell for up to $5000 dollars on the used market. 5K is far beyond my thrift store budget so instead I am using an 80+ year old Zeiss Icon icarette 6x9 camera. The 6x9 format lends itself well to shooting 35mm panoramas but the only challenge is how do you load 35mm film in a 120 medium format camera. This problem is quite easily solved with a 35mm to 120 adapter and take up spool. These can pretty readily found on eBay or if your fortunate enough to have a 3D printer at home you can quickly print one up and start shooting. Fortunately a second side hobby of mine is 3D printing so I did just that.

Loading 35mm with the 3D printed adapters

Loading and shooting 35mm film on an old folding camera like this is really pretty simple. The first thing I did was start with a dummy roll of film to help determine how far to wind each frame. Without frame counters you need to be a bit creative so I decided to place a piece of tape at the beginning of my frame and count how many full turns it took to advance to the next frame. In my case it took 3 and a bit turns, OK it’s not an exact science. Once I was able to determine the right distance to advance each frame I loaded a roll of TriX 400 and drove down to the Harbor where I often go to find inspiration. Below are 5 of the 10 frames I shot. I was actually blown away at the sharpness the lens on this old folder was able to produce. The one tip I would give is to make sure that your frames are level and a tripod is very helpful tool for this. I hope you enjoy the images below and feel free to let me know what you think in the comments section below.